Just got a new phone. Testing it out right now to see how well this works with updating the blog and all. Kinda strange. Used to typing with that T9 text predictor crap. Don't know what to do with myself with a full keyboard now. Buttons are so tiny.

Heading down to the urgent care today to get this rib checked out. Was feeling much better till last night. This sucks, actually. Impossible to sleep. I have nothing to say. I just wanted to use this phone.

Henry's phone

The last one is always the toughest to write. I'm already at home, showered, in my bedclothes, unable to sleep, and in a completely different world. The van is parked comfortably outside and I probably won't set foot in my cramped metal and former home it for at least a week. Everyone else is in repose on their own beds, sleeping in some comfort for the first time in weeks. But comfort be damned, we've gotta finish this bad boy; so here goes.

Once we woke up yesterday morning, Jamie, being the amazing hostess she always is, made an excellent breakfast (she's got an Etsy store you should check out, btw: http://www.etsy.com/shop/theejamieleigh). Coffee, scrambled eggs, and french toast. We didn't have to make it to Brooklyn till later on, and it wasn't too far—two hours (three with traffic, according to Google)—so we took advantage and lounged around the house. The drive itself wasn't that bad, either. It was once we got into the City the trouble started. And by trouble, I really mean stress. With the traffic that hit us, it took us two hours to travel less than ten miles to our destination. We were moving so slow I was able to briefly get WiFi signal in the car (most notably, someone who named their network Old Gregg's Mangina).

Once we were able to get off the highway, everything was a blur. We got to our friend Michael Morgan's place with just enough time to run upstairs, change clothes, drop off our bags, and head over to the club. Spike Hill is located on a pretty busy one-way street with nowhere to really pull over and load out. We found a temporary spot next to a fire department standpipe that gave us enough room to unload gear. Avoided running into people. Ran back to the car and spent twenty minutes looking for parking. By the time we raced back to the club, Heavybirds already started their set.

(After last night and the experience at CMJ I can safely say any fantasies I may have harbored about moving to New York have been quashed. I love the city. I love visiting. The L.E.S. in particular is my jam. But if I moved there I'd probably die of a stroke within ten minutes.)

Anyway, it was our first time seeing Heavybirds. As previously mentioned, we've known Ryan for quite some time since our days playing in the Worcester scene regularly. Heavybirds is a stark contrast to what he was doing with The Ferns. I loved it. They were doing some really cool things with just a guitar, a cello, and a few effects pedals. We were on immediately after them and the mental RPMs were still high. The stage was a bit cramped while we were getting everything on there. Dinged my head against a speaker I didn't see while fussing with my amp (this is on top of my rib still hurting with certain movements). The set was tight as ever, and Tom from Radio America even came up to do some backing vocals on Backs To The Wall. I was really impressed with El Jezel. Their drummer's awesome, and they played a badass cover of Maps.

Radio America had a bunch of new material they've been working on and I loved it. Hilariously enough, Tom borrowed my Les Paul after popping a string. Shortly thereafter, he managed to cut a finger. He must've hit a vein or something, because he bled all over the guitar. I think everyone else was more horrified than I was about it; this week's has been all about injuries. I have to change the strings on it anyway.

We saw a lot of people we hadn't seen in a while. Strangely enough, I bumped into my buddy Shane who now lives in New York (I went to middle school with the guy in Miami and haven't seen him in years; check out his photography at http://www.shaneperez.com/). Kelly McRae was there—she played with us in Boston in January of '08 when we debuted a bunch of songs off of Fan The Fury. Mark from Fugitive Souls (ex-Shapes) was there and we had a long chat about touring. Delighted to see recent New York transplant Jon Schmidt there! (Jon, if you recall, was drumming for us through May of this past year and played on the third leg of the tour). It was awesome to see him, and we all played catch-up. I dunno, there were a lot of people there and I was happy to see them all.

Back at Michael's place we grabbed a few late-night microwavable snacks. Like an idiot I tried to eat it before it cooled and totally burned my left hand. This brings the total tally of injuries to the left side of my body on this tour to three. We stayed up for a bit talking about some tour stories and stuff. A lot of funny shit has gone down.

The ride back home today didn't even feel like we were going home. We were just driving off to another gig. We stopped off in Norwalk, CT to fill our empty bellies with some food. Watching The Big Lebowski off the laptop anesthetized us to the unbearable drive through Connecticut. It was weird dropping everyone off at their house. It always is, though. I wouldn't be surprised if we meet up on Monday to drive around the block for six hours.

So what now? This is the first time in years we're without any shows booked or planned. Everyone's going to take a few weeks off at the very least to be human. Jen and I have a record to finish with Dan before all this madness starts up again.

There are a lot of people that need to be thanked for helping us make all of this happen (and continue to happen); people I'd rather specifically thank when I'm not sleep deprived and have full use of my mental faculties.

For the moment, I'll keep my sentimentality brief. To everyone that's come out to a show, bought a CD, helped us out of the many jams we seem to find ourselves in, given us advice, fixed our gear, played shows with us, given us new gadgets to play with, encouraged us, and generally taken a chance on us: please know we think the world of you.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for singing along.

Thank you for enabling us.

Cheers,
Henry

Labels: tourdiary

I've been doing this long enough to learn one important rule: you never say never. Maybe—just maybe—shows at this place have been amazing and fairly smooth and our traveling circus arrived on an off night. So I'll leave it at this: in all likelihood I will never perform at Mojo 13 ever again. Ever.

We arrived on time to load our things. We worked it out with the booker weeks ago that we'd be going on at 10:30 and the press we received in Wilmington indicated as much.

So you can imagine I had a conniption when the sound guy starts off by determining his own set times based on whose gear is closest to the stage. (I'm not going to poke too much fun at the sound guy either. He was nice, just incredibly aloof and blasé about... well, everything.) Despite the signage, he said there would be only three bands (more on this below). Equally mind-boggling is that show posters we sent weren't put up—not a rare occurrence—but posters from the "band that was added to the bill today" were all over the place and were probably up for at least a week or two.

We tried sorting this out with soundguy. Could we have the local acts go first to draw in people? Negative. No locals on the bill, and "people here hate local bands anyway."

This is when soundguy drops some knowledge on us: "You ever see Wayne's World?"—yes, folks, he quoted the line about Delaware—"It's just like that. Nobody comes to shows. It's a fancy rehearsal, bro."

The solution we came up with was to set our stuff up on stage and have the acoustic act (the one that didn't exist) play first. Then we'd get to play close to 10:30. Everyone's satisfied. However, once our gear was set up, the scheduled fourth band did, indeed, appear as they were supposed to. Set times were immediately cut and we were expected to play at 9:45 now (since our gear was onstage).

One aneurysm later, I had a few terse words with the soundguy (who went from being lovable stoner to uptight taskmaster) and worked it out with the other bands to backline, share gear, and help tear down gear between sets. Final Aloud set time: 10:40pm. I walked out the door to get some air, and the last I heard was "Hey, braugh, now your friends can get in for free tonight!" Galling, but one battle had already been fought that evening, and it looked like Wayne Campbell may have been right after all.

Marked it as the worst night on tour and we hadn't even played yet. Thankfully this was all the drama we had to deal with and the night began to turn around. Stereo Deluxe turned out to be a good band. They're touring from Indianapolis (on their third week already). Had a good chat with the singer Jay for a bit, and the whole band was really nice. They've been to Boston a few times.

Also got to finally meet our publicist Randy in person. We had a great conversation. He's the coolest.

The biggest surprise was this band Uzuhi from Japan by way of New York. I was outside talking with Jay when I got a text from Jen that just said "You can't miss this". She was right. That band had so much heart, so much energy, and they were really good. I'm glad they closed out the night, too. They're an impossible act to follow. We were smiling the entire time they were playing, and at the end of the set they had their photog take a picture with everyone. Super nice folks, too. Shit, it may have made the entire night worthwhile.

Stick in NYC traffic at the moment (yay). Getting into the city only took two hours; been in city traffic for over an hour. Last night of the tour tonight. Bittersweet as ever.

Henry

Labels: tourdiary

Sleep was cut off abruptly. Had to take showers and such, then drop Charles off at the urgent care to take care of his foot. Hit two places that were closed before successfully finding one that wasn't. After breakfast, started drive to Pittsburgh--fortunately it was only three hours. Passed through West Virginia for five seconds, first time in that state.

Met up with Ben, the guy we crashed with and the Howler's soundman. Also happened to grow up in Mass, worked with Charles, and we played with his old band Zipper back in 2004. (It's a small world after all.) We had a really good, long chat with Ben about touring, band stories, the Pittsburgh scene, and his current band Action Camp over some Thai food. Got to meet his bandmate Maura. Almost wish we waited to eat, though. Jo at Howler's made dinner for the bands. She's the coolest.

Saw our autographed t-shirt hanging on the ceiling from the last time we were there. That put a smile on our faces.

Will Knox and his band were incredible. Some beautiful folk stuff going on. They're on tour too, playing Chicago today. Mercy Rules had some great harmonies. Family Lumber from LI are on tour too; hitting Cleveland today. Real interesting guitar interplay. They make the three guitar thing actually work.

Ben did fantastic sound last night and recorded a multitrack of the set. Hope to put those out in some form at some point. Set was really tight last night.
Rain's been pounding down on us since last night. Rib feeling a little better, plan to get that checked out in Boston to be safe. Crashing in South NJ with Jamie for Delaware show tonight; then one more show in NYC tomorrow before we put this puppy to bed.

Henry's phone

Labels: tourdiary

Woke up yesterday with rib hurting more than it did the day before. Jen concluded her contact lens must've fallen out of her eye, if it was even there. Charles still had a deep cut on his foot.

Trip to Columbus was only about six hours, seven accounting for going back into EST. Keith from The Moving Parts and his wife Wendy were kind enough to let us crash at his place. Stopped there first to leave our bags n' things. Their dogs were hilarious. Lot of dogs on this tour.

Bernie's Distillery reminded me of the Abbey Lounge and O'Brien's circa 2003. Charles kept threatening to make out with everyone in the room. Awesome as that would have been to watch, it never happened. The place was a bit dead—early in the week again, so it was expected—but somehow we walked away with a bit of cash and sold last copy of Leave Your Light On that we brought with us. Help Is On The Way's drummer had a Moonie thing going. Keith's band The Moving Parts was great. Everyone was really cool.

Keith and his bandmate Tony took us to a hot dog place called Dirty Frank's. Nothing but hot dogs on the menu. One of the items was The Glenn Beck ("Just a plain old wiener", very accurate). I had the Sriracha(sp?) Slaw Dog. That and the tater tots were amazing. Worth coming to Columbus again just to eat there.

Big thanks again to Keith and Wendy for letting us crash at the last minute. It was a big help.

Sitting at a Panera at the moment, eating a bagel and chugging down less than adequate coffee while Charles is at the urgent care. Might catch up on some reading. Nine Stories is great.

Henry's phone

Labels: tourdiary

Days off are bad news. After doing laundry yesterday, Mike told us about the games of basement baseball he and his roommates play. The setup was fairly organized, but we settled for a scoreless homerun derby. After an unsuccessful at-bat, Charles came out of nowhere and tackled me. Don't think I broke a rib or anything, but it does hurt to laugh now.

In the evening, we ventured into town once again (fed this time). We walked down the Broadway strip. Boot and hat stores as far as the eye can see, and live music was coming out of every bar. There were a lot of homeless folks about as well—there were official-looking pamphlets and signs out asking people not to give money to panhandlers. There was one guy selling some newspapers for a buck, not dissimilar to the Spare Change papers they sell up in Boston. Some group of people behind us started making fun of him for doing so. Assholes have probably never gone hungry a day in their lives.

Anyway, we first settled on hitting up a place called Legends. There were record sleeves checkering the walls (not exclusively country, either; there were village people records and even a Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends record). Had a Dos Perros ale, which was very tasty. Had a round of whiskeys thereafter (good old Tennessee JD). Someone named Matt Mason was playing. Not particularly into country music, but he was really good. None of this pop pap in disguise.

Ventured to The Wheel next. Don't know who was playing and it's been tough to find this info online (if someone has it, please let me know), but after finding out we were from Boston the dude asked Jen to come up and play guitar on a song. Another highlight: in mid-song, they were soliciting requests for TV theme songs. Neither could the Simpsons nor Full House stump them. Also, I have to say this is the first time some promo people approached us with free chewing tobacco. Gross.

Tommy's been going on about Jack in the Box for some time on the tour, so we hit that up. It was just as tasty as he was saying, even if it caused some immediate self-loathing. Back at HQ, Jen and Charles engaged in a jalapeño eating contest. Not sure who won, if anyone wins in that situation. This may have been where it all went downhill.

For starters, Jen lost her contact lens somewhere in her eye and spent a good dramatic twenty minutes trying to fish it out. We're still not sure if it's still there or not (we're guessing not). Her eye was stinging pretty bad. As for the rest of us, we thought a round of midnight basement baseball was in order. Charles was at-bat first, and Tommy got a pitch in. That's when the magic question came out of Charles' mouth: "Am I really bleeding all over the carpet?" The tell-tale trail of red from the strike zone to his foot answered with a yes. He cut his foot pretty deep and nobody's really sure how. The rest of the evening was a mixture of hysterical laughter, cleaning up the stains on the carpet with some Shout, and trying to get the wound cleaned up. Most of this magic was actually caught on video.

Passing through Kentucky now, on the way to Columbus, OH. Everyone's a marvelous wreck at the moment. And it still hurts to laugh.

Henry

Labels: tourdiary

Day off/driving day yesterday. Charles' dad and stepmom were great enough to treat us to lunch at La Hacienda for some Tex-Mex (it was delicious). If you're ever in Little Rock, I highly recommend checking it out.

Drove through Memphis along the way. Would like to give the city another chance at some point (it is the birthplace of Rock n' Roll), but kind of hard to shake off the experience the last time I was there.

Have noticed there are a lot of combination gas stations/convenience stores/restaurants out in the middle of nowhere. Also saw an interesting church sign bemoaning us to not "put a question mark where god put a period." I can only assume there is an exemption for the interrobang. Questions are funnier when you well them anyway.

Crashed with a friend of Tommy's, Michael, who took us into town to get some food. Apparently, it's tough to get eats in Nashville at somewhere other than a Friday's, Taco Bell, or Church's chicken. That's probably not true... may have just been looking in the wrong part of town. Anyway, settled on eating at Five Guys, which was actually really good.

Laundry day today. Still in my pajamas. Secured a place to stay at for Columbus, OH tomorrow, which means this tour will be 100% hotel-free.
That's the dryer. Time to fold.

Henry's phone

Labels: tourdiary

In Nashville right now, having a bite. Played Little Rock last night and it was absolutely amazing. Easily the best show of the tour. Crowd was there, able to sell a bunch of merch. Looks like there's a very vibrant scene there. Would've never guessed that Arkansas would be a hotbed of awesome. Magic Hassle and The See were fantastic and really fun guys, to boot. The sound guy at Sticky Fingerz, Maestro, did a superb job. Later found out he did sound on tour for The Ojays and George Clinton. Definitely want to come back around.

The show was a sort of homecoming for Charles. We made plans to meet up with some of his friends for an after-party, but for whatever reason that didn't last too long. Everyone headed back to Charles' dad's to continue the party. I thought it would be a good idea to lie down and close my eyes for a few minutes. Five minutes turned into five hours. After eight hours in the van then playing the show I was tired as hell and could stands no mores.

Off today and tomorrow. Will probably be in Nashville till Tuesday, then we're off to Ohio. Could use the rest anyway. Throat feels ripped.

Henry's phone

Labels: tourdiary

The nice thing about not having stayed in any hotels (so far) is there is no checkout time, which means we can sleep in and take our time getting out—which is exactly what we did yesterday. Since we were in the area, and who the hell knows when we're going to be around again, we spent some time wandering through the French Quarter in New Orleans for an hour and a half (Charles has been here before and was awesome enough to stay in the car to watch the gear). There were street musicians on a few corners within close proximity of each other. The architecture was pretty fantastic. Lots of signs for the Saints. I thought it was funny that the New Orleans Police Department acronym is NOPD; they were actually selling t-shirts and things to raise funds for the policeman's fraternity or some such thing.

Charles told us about this sign—a plaque, actually—by a Knight of Columbus headquarters in memoriam of the "children killed by abortion". Maybe if these clowns had enough money to spend on sanctimonious plaques to affix onto their building they could spare a few bucks to, I don't know, help people out after they're born as well. Just a thought.

Anyway, we ventured all the way out to Jackson Square and had lunch. Tommy and I had a po boy (mine: ham & swiss; Tommy's: fish) and Jen had a jambalayah platter (a-m-a-z-i-n-g... I don't even like shrimp and I thought it tasted amazing). Couldn't do much else beyond that. Would love to come back here to do some less touristy things, but the clock's ticking... Would liked to have seen the 9th Ward, too, but we were running late as it was. It's pretty fucked up an entire section of New Orleans is still a wreck four years after Hurricane Katrina. No goddamn excuse for it.

Around 7:30 or so, we dropped off our stuff at the Barisal Guns' HQ (dubbed The Yellow House). Clicks is a billiards place with a sweet stage. I learned that we were up against some LSU homecoming parties and things, but I think we still managed to get asses through the door. There was also a Golden Tee 2010 there—FYI, Fan The Fury is included in that game's Hit List option along with some other bands—and I played a few holes to check it out. (Lest I seem like some empty corporate shill, I actually do love playing Golden Tee.) I only had enough cash for a couple of holes, though, and didn't get around to actually hearing it.

The set went well. It was probably the best show of the tour so far. I had a bit of a bad night onstage. My tuning pedal is apparently now on the fritz, and my guitar would cut in and out if I hit it the wrong way. This tour is many things, and one of them is the Henry's Stuff is Breaking Tour. Barisal Guns was pretty awesome (and thank goodness they were... they have a gong and it would have been disappointing if they sucked). I was impressed. They put on a really good fucking show. Robin and Mark (from the night before) came by and caught the show.

Some funny stuff: 1) some drunk person kept trying to talk us into giving her free stuff. She was hilariously thwarted. If it were financially viable to give this all away I'd do it; but gas ain't cheap, and this isn't a charity. She happily settled for us signing a drumstick and a guitar pick. 2) When we were on our way back to the Yellow House, we saw some guy in a pickup truck chugging a tall can of beer at the stop light. That can't be legal, can it?

After the show, the BG kids had an after party. They were awesome enough to cook us a pizza (we were starving). We shot the shit all night and generally had a good time. They've got a place to crash if they're ever in Massachusetts.

At a gas stop in Louisiana en route to Little Rock right now. Lady Jane tells us it's an eight hour drive. Google Maps and the citizens of Baton Rouge tell us it's about five or six hours. We shall see who prevails.

Henry

Labels: tourdiary

Wednesday was a driving day. Traveled from Fayetteville, GA to Pass Christian, MS (where Charles' aunt was kind enough to allow us to stay). It was my first time passing through Alabama and Mississippi and it was actually quite nice. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting. Ate cheese sandwiches pretty much the whole day, and when we arrived we were then able to make grilled cheese sandwiches. Eatin' like kings now. Also crossed into Central Standard Time. Always fun. We stayed up into the night bullshitting before heading to bed.

Slept in yesterday and spent most of the day hanging about the house, eating more cheese sandwiches. We took a trip through town. We got stuck behind two tractors on a weird looking road. There was a weird bar that looked like a large outhouse and whose logo was the stars & bars (Confederate flags irk me). The Delisle Forest is home to a DuPont chemical factory. This was all in stark contrast to the house's backyard. That was gorgeous, actually.

The show was a little loose and funny. I think this was the best show of the tour so far. There's some video of the show; we'll probably put something up as soon as we get a steady internet connection. The folks at Cafe Prytania were great to us. This dude Alex was selling some food there; he not only fed us for free, but made us some to-go packages as well. Made his own bread, too; tasted amazing. We also met Robin, Annie's friend who helped book a few shows for us down here. Some good people out in New Orleans.

Other choice moments:

- Tommy turning onto the wrong end of a one way street, Charles instructionally yelling "No", and Tommy nonchalantly changing lanes. The street wasn't marked very well.

- The really drunk woman who kept falling over, and also kept beckoning everyone with a (quote) "sexy" (unquote) come-hither look. This really isn't that funny writing about it. I wish one of us took a picture.

- Charles riding on the back of the van for 800 yards upon returning to Pass Christian.

In Baton Rouge right now, waiting to load in at Clicks. Will talk about it tomorrow, as well as further adventures in New Orleans.

Henry

Labels: tourdiary

Two days behind on blogging already (booo) so I'll get to it.

Athens, GA
The drive from Fayetteville, NC (not to be confused with Fayetteville, GA—where we're currently staying with one of Jen's family friends) isn't terribly long, but we were probably in the van for two hours more than we needed to be. My amp was still dead and we needed to hit up a repair shop, stat. We found one in Lawrenceville, about an hour west of Athens. Along the way we saw a placed named "European Sports Bar & Grill", but their signage was on a US flag (there's no story there, we just thought it was really funny). We arrived around 3:30 at Gwinnett Music Store to see what the deal was. The circumstance sucked, but it's always pretty awesome whenever you get to stop by a music store on tour (Guitar Center, while useful at times, doesn't count). The folks there were awesome and were able to fix the problem fairly quickly. I expected the worst and was already eyeballing amps, but thankfully my amp just had a couple of burnt out tubes that needed to be replaced.

Arrived at Caledonia Lounge around 5:00pm and loaded in. The place reminded me of 2¢ Plain in St. Louis (which is sadly no longer there). Happy to find out from a few posters that Hallelujah the Hills will be playing there on Friday. We were still incredibly early so we took the time to wander around Athens a bit and grab some coffee. There was an early happy hour set by a band called Nutria. They had some pretty good songs. B-Side Revolution opened up at 10:15. They played a cover of Redhouse (Jimi is always okay in my book). Great Society closed up the night and were pretty brilliant. Some of the stuff was reminiscent of early U2 (in a very subtle way I can't explain), but it put a smile on my face. We met some people—Adrian and Ryan—who were great to talk to. Adrian and I talked about Halloween for a bit—my least favorite Hallmark Holiday, but the conversation was pleasant enough—and she thought about going as Nancy Spungen to a party. Ryan proved to me what a small world this is; he played with the guys from Violet Nine, and we talked about them for a while (all good things, I assure you).

Around 1:30 or so we moseyed down the street to a 24 hour diner simply named The Grill. I didn't have any of their milkshakes (tempted, but not necessary at one in the morning). While keeping a periodic eye on the van—and primarily the treasures within it—we riffed on Michael Stipe's motivations for wanting to break into our van. For whatever reason we all thought the trip to Fayetteville would be about an hour tops. Our dreams were shattered when we exited the establishment at 2:00am. We activated Jane (aka our GPS) and she told us we'd actually be arriving at 4:30. Needless to say, it was a long, rainy drive back and we all failed at staying awake to keep Tommy company.

Clocked out at 5:00am.

Columbus, GA (aka Adventure Day)
Jen and I had to wake up before noon for an interview with OffBeat Magazine in New Orleans. We spoke with Kyle for about twenty minutes and it went really well. Very pleasant and we had a good rapport going. As I've stated in the past, it's always a victory when you avoid the occasional necessary evil of the Unholy Trinity of interview questions: influences, band formation story, and describing your sound. I think the story should be up sometime today or tomorrow.

Columbus, GA (not to be confused with Columbus, OH, where we'll be next week) is only an hour and a half away. We basically ate shit most of the day. Jen's friend has a music room set up downstairs (guitars, bass, drums, and an organ with a leslie attached) so we messed around with stuff there for a bit. Would've liked to record a song or something, but it never came about. We were pretty tired anyway, and anything more involved than dicking around on an instrument would've been too much work. Actually, that's not entirely true. In a fit of extreme boredom, Charles and I started recording 30-second songs (which may or may not be thirty seconds) and were completely made up on the spot. Played Guitar Hero for a bit. Tommy and Charles kept trying to get through Slayer's Raining Blood.

We rolled out at 6. It was pissing down (remnants of the late Hurricane Ida). Thirty minutes into the hour and a half drive, we heard a funny noise. The passenger side wiper was clacking against the window. Nobody thought anything of this... until the wipers just cold stopped. We pulled over to the shoulder and we went outside to inspect what the fuck was going on with the wipers. Being on the side of a highway—cars and massive trucks zipping by at 70+ miles per hour less than two feet away from my person—was probably one of the most frightening moments of my life. Tommy and Charles managed to get the driver's side wiper to work at least, which was enough to get us to a Loves truck stop nearby. We got new wipers and replaced them. The bolt on the right wiper had come loose and just needed to be tightened. Still unexplained: the wipers now only work on High.

Surprisingly enough, we were still on time.

I never know what to expect exactly when a venue's name is suffixed by "Bar & Grill". People give a lot of latitude to the definition. For one thing, I don't think they served food there. The door guy, Donnie, was very nice and let us in through the back way. The store room was host to a variety of things, most notably a mountable plaque with a pair of rubber breasts. The room was smoky and the stage large. There was a quick and terse war of words between Jen and the sound guy. Without provocation he started teasing her in a pretty mean-spirited way—literally, two seconds after introducing himself. This was amicably resolved within fifteen minutes; the dude's been going through stuff in his personal life not worth getting into and he apologized.

After the show we talked to a few people. Our last time in Columbus—when we played at The Loft—was a markedly different experience. This time there was a shroud of sadness over the city that was impossible to escape. Everyone we spoke to wanted to be somewhere other than Columbus. One guy was at the tail end of his marriage, waiting for the big old divorce train to hit him. One other guy we spoke to, Will, was buying us shots in honor of his friend who just got shot at Fort Hood. Still alive, thankfully, but she got popped twice in the chest. It wasn't all sad, though. Some dude named Sed was talking to us for a while and offered his services as our road dog (and if we could fit ourselves in the van, we may have taken him up on his offer). I talked to a guy named Billy. He was recently up in Massachusetts and we were talking about music for a good long while. It was good.

Heard some interesting songs on the jukebox (terrible, yes; but interesting). One was about crashing your girl's car because she just dumped you. I looked that one up today, but I can't be bothered to remember. The other had lines that would make Edward Blake and Dylan Thomas blush ("I'm a vegetarian/I'm not fucking scared of you" and "Shush, girl, don't move your lips/Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips"). I think this group is called 3Oh!3. 303 is the area code for Denver, and they're apparently from Boulder. Boo.

On the way back to Fayetteville, we stopped off the highway for some food (but not before exploring the most massive Burger King any of us had ever seen... will post vid later). There was a choice before us: Dunkin Donuts (not ideal, but acceptable) and Waffle House (DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER). Everyone wanted to do Waffle House; Jen had never been and agreed—if only for the life experience.

It was a regretful decision.

Driving day. Passing through Alabama for the first time in my life. Crashing in Pass Christian, Mississippi before hitting New Orleans tomorrow.

Henry

Labels: tourdiary

Had to do an in-store acoustic thing at a Hot Topic yesterday around 3pm. We literally had to perform in front of a fucking Twilight/New Moon display and when we had to play Sometimes I Feel Like A Vampire I very nearly threw up in my mouth. I have a big mouth and I make some crack about this. Don't think the 14 year old girl trying to buy a Robert Pattinson shirt appreciated it. Lest I seem like an ungrateful cur, the staff at Hot Topic was super helpful and incredibly nice to have us play there at all.

Karma has her way with me later.

Jen's folks have friends in Fayetteville who cooked us dinner. We decompressed a bit and they made us dinner. Gotta say, I think we may have a bit of luck on this tour in the home-cooked meal dept. Anyway, we arrived at The Rock Shop around 6:30, set up our gear. Start the sound check and—surprise—my amp isn't making any noise at all. After the Enormous Room show last week, we spent a whole evening check the amp out and it sounded fine. Now: nothing. A total FML moment. Once we exhausted most possibilities I gave the amp a good kick. Hope I didn't break my big toe. It's still pretty sore. I'm an idiot. Luckily, the sound guy had a Mesa Boogie cab lying around that got the job done. Don't know what I would've done.

The show itself was tremendous and not a bad way to properly start the tour. There weren't many people there, on account of it being a Sunday in Fayetteville, but the folks who were there were dancing up a storm. We had to extend the middle of Backs to do shots with them. It was that kinda night. The folks at The Rock Shop were awesome and I'd love to come back again some time. It's nice to be appreciated. (Also, everyone we talked to was a DJ, oddly enough.)

Hitting up Athens today. Going to search for a few repair shops to get the fucking amp fixed. We took another look and we think some of the tubes may have been damaged (a simple enough fix, I'm told).

Henry

Labels: tourdiary

Yesterday was a driving day, did the trip from Boston to DC. Would've been an eight hour trip if we didn't hit traffic twice. Charles brought up a series of topics that led to lengthy discussion:

- What's your favorite number?
- Billed or bill-less hats?
- Scuba diving or sky diving?

We crashed with Charles' bro and his wife, who are incredibly awesome and bought us dinner from this Turkish place called Rumi (the veggie mousakka was amazing). Charles' bro happens to work on the Hill and we had a really awesome, spirited discussion (particularly with regards to the whole health care thing, which will hopefully pass the House today).

Relatively short drive to Raleigh today to Casa de la Osa. Having Faux-Thanksgiving tonight. First couple of shows tomorrow in Fayetteville (in-store at a Hot Topic, then playing The Rock Shop).

Ugh... have to repack the van now.

Henry

Labels: tourdiary

T-minus one day before we hit the road. The tour kickoff kicked our ass, but in a way it was a good test run and further added to a check list of things to do (and not do).

Notably:

- Fix amp (or get new cables) to make sure amp doesn't stop working in the middle of Nero. (Check)
- Fix polarity on sustain pedal to make sure keyboard doesn't switch instruments in the middle of Backs To The Wall... or any other song. (Check)
- Don't step on cables in a fashion that will pull them out of their sockets mid-song (Check check)
- Don't slam your guitar two days before tour.

Been running around a lot this week and last to make sure everything's on the up and up before we depart. We spent this past weekend finishing up one track and recording another for our yet-to-be-named-yet-to-be-released-yet-to-be-announced record.

Only running on three hours worth of sleep yesterday (making the grand total for two days: six hours). Headed out for an interview for Performer Magazine with C.D. Di Guardia (who did our interview back in 2007). C.D.'s fun to talk to, and I appreciate it whenever the The Unholy Trinity is avoided: How did the band get together? What are your influences? Can you describe your sound? Talked a lot about the new recordings. Interviews are generally weird, but this was actually a lot of fun.

Following das interview we headed out to TT's to catch Dinosaur Feathers. We saw them a couple of weeks in Brooklyn at CMJ, total happenstance, but I thought they were great. Insane harmonies. They were a member short at this show, but still sounded great. It was also weird being out at TT's and not knowing anybody in the audience haha. It's been a while since that's happened. 

Home at 12, checked email, then sleeeep. The end.

Soldering-Henry's-amp party tonight. Tomorrow we start driving to DC. Woooooooo.

Still haven't packed.

Please recommend music to listen to.

Henry

Labels: tourdiary